The Curse on the Chosen (The Song of the Tears Book 2) (17 page)

She wasn’t game to go near the ovipositor, but the left fang
was dangling from its venom bulb, half torn off by the force of her impact.
Coating her hands liberally with protective muck, she wrenched the bulb and
fang off, plugged the tip of the fang with a globule of ooze, then wrapped all
in a strip torn from the bottom of her gown and tied it around her neck.

It was an awfully long climb up to the hole, and she was
quite desperately exhausted and sore, but she knew she was going to make it.
Nothing was going to stop her this time!

She caught hold of the web and began to pull herself up.

 
THIRTEEN

Flydd rubbed his stinging hand as he tried to come to
terms with what had just happened. From what he remembered of the Secret Arts,
he couldn’t explain it.

‘Was that
her
again?’ said Colm.

‘It looks that way.’

‘Is she here?’ Colm kept his eyes averted from the hissing
flame.

‘I don’t know, though I know when I’m being used. We’ve got
to get out.’

‘You said the flame was our only hope.’

‘But I don’t think it’s meant to be used
here
.’

‘How else can we use it?’

‘I don’t know. I don’t understand anything! Guard the door.
I’ll see if I can find another way out.’

Colm took up position by the door, his bloody sword
upraised. ‘They’re coming! It sounds like his whole army.’

‘And this time the sounds are real, which means that
Vivimord can’t keep Jal-Nish out any longer.’ Flydd walked around the altar,
staring into the flame. ‘How did that power come to my knife? What’s she trying
to tell me? How to get away?’

‘Xervish!’ Colm said urgently.

He was near to cracking. Flydd could see it in his eyes as
they reflected the flames. ‘I haven’t found the way out.’

‘Get a move on. They’re nearly here.’

Flydd ignored him. He had to focus all his wits on finding
the way –
her
way. He could
hear the pounding boots now, hundreds of them, and felt a shiver of fear. ‘Bar
the doors.’

‘With what?’

‘How the bloody hell would I know? Use your initiative.’

Colm thrust the dead soldiers’ swords through the U-shaped
door handles and studied the result. ‘That won’t hold them back a minute.’

Flydd left it to him. I’m not even asking the right
questions, he thought, trying to conjure up his mental image of the woman
holding the chalice. Who could she be? She must have been a mighty sorcerer
once.

The army thundered up the passage towards the doors. He had
mere seconds to find the way. If he wasn’t meant to use the flame here, how was
he supposed to take it where it was needed? Ah!

He brought his knife to the flame until the blade began to
sing anew, then used the beam from its tip to cut a small rectangular block
from the altar, no longer than the palm of his hand. Holding the block
carefully, he eased the singing blade into it, almost to the bottom, then
carefully turned it in a circle and broke out the cylinder of rock. Cutting its
top off, he wetted the sides with his tongue –
sizzle
– and slid it in. It fitted perfectly, making a
stopper for the empty bottle.

Taking it out again, he reached out and gingerly held the
bottle to the fire, upside down, until it was full of green-black abyssal
flame. Could such a small amount of flame be enough to open the way? It would
have to do; there wasn’t time to make another bottle. He stoppered it, tied the
stopper on with a piece of string and pocketed the bottle alongside the phial
containing the cursed flame. If only he knew how to use them.

The swords rattled as someone pushed on the doors.
‘Xervish?’ Colm hissed. ‘Are you all right?’

Flydd was pressing his fist to the centre of his chest
again. The burning pain was stronger than before, and anxiety seemed to make it
worse. He felt quite ill with it. ‘Yes,’ he lied. ‘Come here.’

Colm ran back to the altar, reaching it as an armoured
shoulder hit the doors hard. The swords held, though Flydd knew they would not
survive many more blows. His knife was dead again. He recharged it in the
flame.

‘Make another bubble,’ said Colm. ‘She might show you the
way this time.’

The doors burst open, the swords snapping under the force of
the impact, and two soldiers pushed in. Flydd saw dozens more behind them, the
flame reflecting off their upraised blades.

Flydd thought he knew what to do, but he was afraid. What if
the flame paralysed him, as the cursed flame had Maelys? Yet it was the woman
in red’s flame; might that protect him? No time for hesitation now; he had to
follow his intuition –
or hers
.

He stripped the cloth off the taphloid, sprang up and,
holding it by the chain, thrust his hand into the flame. Colm choked and turned
away. The flame burned, though not with the heat of a normal fire. Flydd held
his hand there for as long as he could endure the prickly heat, and a few
seconds more, whipping it out as a monstrous bubble emerged from the hole in
the altar, temporarily blocking the flame, which gushed out on all sides in
tongues of green and black. Why the bubbles, he wondered. Were they the easiest
way she could communicate with him, from wherever she was?

The bubble rose, slowly revolving, though this time, to
Flydd’s dismay, he couldn’t see anything in it. He’d been expecting the woman
to solve his problems, but how could she? She must be far away, for every
communication took a greater effort and seemed to hurt her more.

‘How am I supposed to get out?’ he muttered.

Down
. The voice in
his head sounded really strained now.

‘What do you mean?’ he said, low and urgent. ‘Am I supposed
to go
down
, or
out
? Speak to me!’

She did not answer. He felt that her strength was failing.
Was she trapped as well?

‘If this chamber was built as a way for her to recharge her
power,’ Flydd added, ‘why doesn’t she use it?’

‘She can’t get to it,’ guessed Colm.

‘Take them!’ ordered an officer with a plume of ochre
feathers rising from the top of his helm. The soldiers advanced. ‘Battle
mancers, neutralise Flydd.’

A pair of robed mancers pointed their rods at Flydd. He ducked
behind the altar. Did her instruction mean to go down, or to
send
something down? The flame, perhaps?
Following his intuition, he thrust his hand into the flame again and roared,
‘Down!’

To his surprise, the bubble dropped sharply, pushing the
flame out to all sides like the petals of a buttercup. A green wisp made his
hand tingle until the vent blocked and the flames went out.

The room grew dark, apart from the glimmering hemisphere of
the bubble. The whistling note of the abyssal flame was cut off and the room
became as silent as stone. The soldiers froze; even the mancers went still,
arms outstretched. Flydd didn’t understand what he had done, nor why the
God-Emperor’s battle mancers, who were hardened to every kind of atrocity
imaginable, seemed to be afraid.

‘Cut them down!’ said the plume-helmed officer.

The floor seemed to move in a circle beneath Flydd’s feet.
‘Down and down and down again!’ he said softly, concentrating on the bubble,
though he did not see how it could work. He no longer had the Art for it.

Suddenly, silently, the bubble was sucked down through the
vent and the whole floor circled the other way. The only light came from a
pencil beam, with the same glimmer as the bubble, shooting vertically from the
vent and making a small green circle on the ceiling, many spans above.

‘Lantern bearers, unshutter your lanterns,’ shouted the
officer.

Dozens of metal shutters rasped open, but no light came
forth.

‘Lantern bearers, re-light your lanterns.’

After a pause, a man yelped. ‘They’re lit, sir,’ he said in
a hoarse whisper. ‘I burned my fingers on the flame but it’s not giving out any
light.’

‘Nor mine,’ said another.

The officer’s voice grew hard. ‘Mancers, make light.’

One mancer bellowed like a trapped buffalo and a fizzing
sound issued forth, but the blackness remained impenetrable. The other’s rod
shone white at the tip before fading again.

‘Troops, move around the walls.’ The officer’s voice rose.
‘Stand shoulder to shoulder until you encircle the room completely, then move
in to the altar. Allow no one to get past. Take Cryl-Nish Hlar and the
black-haired girl, if you can find them. Kill the others.’

‘What are we going to do, Xervish?’ Colm said, beside him.

Flydd could feel the woman straining to tell him something,
and he could sense her pain, but nothing came through. Pushing the bubble down
had been the right thing to do, but it hadn’t saved him; it hadn’t shown him
anything either; or had it? Maybe he hadn’t gone far enough. His eye followed
the pencil beam up to the ceiling, where a spiral engraved on the stone
appeared to be the twin of the one on the top of the pedestal. And it, he
recalled, looked as though it was meant to turn. Could it open some secret
passage or path, and if so, how was it operated?

He ran through those methods of opening he could recall,
though most relied on knowing particular words of command, on solving
fiendishly difficult puzzles or on mechanical devices of great cleverness and
subtlety. But he could not be expected to know such words of command, nor solve
such puzzles in an instant. Besides, this was her flame, and as far as he knew
she had dwelt here alone. The answer would surely be simple, and encoded in the
one word,
down
.

‘Down!’ he said softly.

Colm began to duck below the altar.

Flydd gripped him by the shoulder. ‘Not you; stand firm.
Down!
’ he said to the bubble, using his
most commanding tone and, with a rumble that shook the floor, it continued on
its downward path.

The shaking intensified until Flydd had to hold onto the
altar with his free hand, but it began to separate into two sections at the
spiral engraved on the stone. Now he could feel the floor cracking, no,
separating from the altar and moving outwards, carrying them with it. Vapour
hissed up. The ceiling also seemed to be spiralling apart though there was not
enough light to see it clearly.

The altar section twisted itself down through the
ever-widening hole. Flydd staggered and nearly fell in as the other section
went too. Was he supposed to follow? He could not see what lay below, nor any
way to get down, but going to the source of the flame seemed like a bad idea.
Then, as he teetered on the edge, he heard rock being torn open in the depths.
Had he set off some trap or curse?

It definitely did not help; it hadn’t revealed any way out.
The floor opened just behind them, in a ring centred on the altar hole but a
few spans out, leaving them on a narrow doughnut of floor. Flydd was eyeing
this new opening when, with a roar and a rush, a column of vapour shot up, and
ignited. The abyssal flame was back, a hundred times greater, a vast ring of
green-black fire surrounding them.

Colm shuddered, his eyes took on an insane blankness and he
barely choked down a shriek. He was cracking and Flydd could hardly blame him:
the flame was his worst nightmare.

‘Hold on, Colm,’ he said softly.

The soldiers were equally wide-eyed, but they were tough,
disciplined men who obeyed orders without question. They began moving around
the wall to encircle the flame, and more were streaming in through the doors.

‘What’s going on –?’ It sounded as if a band had been
clamped around Colm’s vocal cords. He screwed his eyes shut, took a deep breath
and opened them again, staring at his feet. ‘We’re between the pit and the
flame, and there’s no way out!’

Flydd was beginning to think the same thing but, before
anything else, he had to calm Colm. If he broke down it would make their
situation impossible. ‘Get ready to fight.’

He held his knife as close to the raging flames as he could
bear, but this time it made no sound.

‘What’s the matter now?’ Colm shrieked, running around in
circles.

‘The perversity of the Art,’ Flydd muttered. ‘Things seldom
work the same way twice, especially when you really need them. Stay calm; I’ll
get us out yet,’ he lied, for he had no plan at all.

What if the abyssal flame were linked to the cursed flame,
as he’d speculated earlier? He knew the cursed flame had some connection to the
obelisk at the centre of the plateau, which was an ancient Charon memorial as
well as a warning that all things must fail. Could it also be a signpost
pointing straight down to the vast power of the abyssal flame which the woman
in red could no longer reach?

It made sense. What if she’d come to him during renewal
because she’d read his intention to go through the shadow realm, and realised
that he could help her? She must intend him to use the power of the flame to
open a portal into the shadow realm, from the obelisk. He closed his mind to
the step after that – what she would do once he’d given her what she
wanted. If this was the only way out, he was going to take it, no matter the
consequences.

‘Show me the way,’ he said softly, eyeing the creeping
soldiers.

She did not reply; he would have to work it out, but how was
he to activate a link between the flames? By mixing them? Flydd opened his
phial and bottle, and allowed wisps of their flames to merge in the air. The
flames went blue and began to revolve in a tight spiral that reminded him of a
galaxy he’d seen while studying the stars in his prenticeship, near sixty years
ago. The spiral spun in on itself, ever faster, only to collapse into
nothingness. He hastily stoppered his bottles as the rock groaned below him.

The circular altar hole closed over, shot open again and a
set of stone steps twisted up from the depths like an auger to form a tight,
rail-less stair moving towards the opening in the ceiling.